Japan Photo Guide

The first forecast for the 2008 Cherry Blossom season has been released!

If you can choose anytime of the year to come to Japan, cherry blossom season is the best time (also fall is a great time). During this time, the seasonal flowers can be seen all over Japan and make for great photos. The 2007 cherry blossom forecast will be released around late February or early March and can be seen at the site of the Japan Meteorology Agency.

When the winters are mild (like the winter of 2007 is) the cherry blossom trees tend to bloom a little earlier than normal. While the forecasts are usually pretty close, like the weather, when cherry blossoms bloom are still slightly unpredictable! Also, different factors such as how much sun a tree gets, play a large role as well.

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Tokyo Dome is the 55,000 seat stadium home to the Yomiuri Giants. It has hosted everything from NBA and NFL games to monster truck, mixed martial arts and pro wrestling. Next to Tokyo Dome is a place called LaQua which is a shopping and restaurant building. In addition a small amusement park that has a telecaster that goes through the main building, a water ride, bowling and a ferris wheel. To get there by JR you should get off at Suidobashi Station or by subway at Korakuen Station. The below photos is courtesy of PhotoPassJapan.com.

One thing that makes Tokyo Dome worth checking out is food. Especially in the building called LaQua which has a wonderful yakiniku place called Jojoen. It is expensive, but trust me, it is worth it to go one time. Besides the food, just the architecture of the area can make for some nice photos and it is kind of a unique place compared to other parts of Tokyo. See more photos and read the rest of this entry »

Satoland Sapporo is one of the 3 sites for the Sapporo Snow Festival, with Odori Park and Susukino being the other two. Satoland is a little far from the city, but can easily be accessed during the snow festival by free shuttle buses that run from the other sites. While most of the impressive sculptures are at the Odori Park site, Satoland has such things as an ice labyrinth (maze), huge ice slide, ice rafting (a raft gets pulled by a snow mobile) and even hot air balloon rides weather permitting.

For more information and a few photos, see the official Satoland Site.

Thanks to Greg Logan for the photos!

Sleeping in Japan can quite often be an expensive thing and unlike the USA where hotels charge per room, in Japan it is often a price per person. I am going to run through a couple different options that are decent, cheaper alternatives to regular hotels in Japan. See other places to stay.

Love Hotels are quite interesting and unique to Japan. Basically, love hotels are for couples to spend a few hours alone together as walls in Japanese homes are (sometimes literally) paper thin. Love hotels tend to have larger rooms than regular hotels, with nicer (and larger) bathrooms, plasma tvs, karaoke, video games, and access to dvds (adult and regular movies). Rooms can have various types of themes and some have various “amenities” such as massage chairs, slot machines, saunas or even a small indoor pool. Some hotels have different themes per room and other hotels have a theme for the entire hotel. There are two options, rest (2-3 hours) or starting from around 10pm you can stay (9-12 hours). Prices and times vary depending on the place, time of day, and if it is a weekend/holiday. A typical love hotel will cost about 3000-5000 yen for a rest and 7000-over 10000 yen for a stay. Often you choose your room by pressing a button next to a picture and then pay a person behind a opaque counter (privacy is important here). Apparently they will not let more than two people in a room nor do most let same sex couples in (sometimes).

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Recently, I have received several questions asking me about “babibubebo” and what it means. Actually, it has no meaning(as far as I know….), but instead is just a set of sounds from Japanese. In Japanese there are 5 basic sounds, ah, ee, oo, a (long “a” as in “hay”) and oh. To make other sounds you simply add another sound in front of those sounds. For example, kah, key, koo, kay, koh or in this site’s case bah, bee, boo, bay, boh. So basically, I just liked the way the babibubebo rolled off my tongue and it was a domain that was available. So now you can speak Japanese! Kind of…

Ikebukuro is yet another large entertainment and commercial district of Tokyo. Ikebukuro JR Station is the 2nd busiest in Tokyo (1st is Shinjuku Station) and it’s subway station is the busiest in Tokyo. It is estimated that about 1 million people pass through Ikebukuro on a normal day. There are what seem to be an endless amount of shops and restaurants in Ikebukuro and while it is an interesting place, I recommend checking out Shibuya and/or Shinjuku first. If you still need more of an urban fix and have time, then you should head over to Ikebukuro. To be honest, it doesn’t feel too different from those places except for maybe a little older; however, there is another reason why you might want to go to Ikebukuro….

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Sleeping in Japan can quite often be an expensive thing and unlike the USA where hotels charge per room, in Japan it is often a price per person. I am going to run through a couple different options that are decent, cheaper alternatives to regular hotels in Japan.  See the other places to stay.

Business hotels are western style hotels that are mainly for business men but anyone can stay there. The rooms are usually very simple and tend to be a little smaller than regular hotel rooms. Personally, when I travel, if I will stay at a western style hotel, I like to stay at Toyoko Inn. You can make reservations on their website and there is no cancellation fee if you cancel more than 2-3 days in advance (each branch is different so check it out). They have hotels in almost every prefecture in Japan and the prices are fairly reasonable at around 4500-6000 yen for a single room (and a double is usually not too much more) where as a regular hotel could run anywhere from 9000-12000 yen for a single room. Most Toyoko Inns have free internet access in the lobby and tend to be fairly new or recently renovated.

No I do not work for Toyoko Inn nor am I affiliated with them in any way!  While business hotels are never going to be as comfortable as 4 or 5 star hotels, business hotels are a nice compromise between comfort and price.  Here are a couple of links, in no order, where you can search and make reservations for business hotels in Japan (English):

• Rakuten
• Japan Hotel.net
• Japan Hotels Online

Hoteles en Roquetas de Mar Reserva de hoteles en Roquetas de Mar, Costa de Almeria, Spain. Increible!!! Precios super rebajados desde 18 euros/dia por persona.

In Tokyo there is plenty of public transportation by way of train but if you want to go to Asakusa you can take a boat ride to/from Asakusa called the Sumida River Cruise. You do not need a reservation, and while sometimes in the summer it can get pretty crowded, there are usually a couple of boats per hour. There are different course you can take running from a short 5 minutes to 35-40 minutes. The Sumida River Cruise is a nice way to see some of Tokyo and a lot of interesting bridges. As you can see from the photos below there are a couple differnet kinds of boats you can choose from and they go on different routes.

The cooler looking one, that kind of looks like a spaceship, only runs a few times a day and takes you to Odaiba. The building with the golden building and the smaller building with the thing on it is the Asahi Beer Building. See more photos and read the rest of this entry »